Philosophy
What is it about at sixth-form level?
What is real? How should we live? What can we really know? Questions as broad and deep as these have fascinated people for centuries. As a philosophy student, you will start thinking about them and explore ideas and thinkers from across the ages. In one lesson, you might be walking with Socrates in ancient Athens as he argues that we are born with knowledge; in another, you might be back in the modern day wondering whether computers could ever experience love or sadness. You will meditate with Descartes on what sort of thing you are and you will address in detail what philosophers have said about the perennial puzzle of whether God exists.
Philosophy attracts those who like journeys, not destinations. This does not mean that philosophical questions have no answers. For whether they do or do not is itself a philosophical question! The questions are fascinatingly simple yet profound and they invite us to explore what they mean and what the ‘philosophical landscape’ looks like in which we would hope to find the right path.
Why study it and what skills does it develop?
Philosophy is an old and much-respected discipline, attracting thinkers from around the world and from a spectrum of backgrounds. Their contemplations and debates upon the nature of our reality are at once both abstract and personal, shedding light upon the nature of our thoughts and our status as thinkers. Philosophy will introduce you to new ways of thinking about both new and familiar subjects as well as providing tools for examining the theories and presuppositions underpinning other academic subjects. We will explore classic questions such as the existence of the external world, what it means to know something, and whether or not these questions can be meaningfully answered.
What prior knowledge and skills are required?
You will need to have obtained at least 5 GCSEs at 9-4 including a grade 6 in English Language. You should be aware that the course requires a lot of reading, a lot of writing and a capacity for logical thought and open-mindedness.
How is the course assessed?
A level
The A level is assessed by two three-hour end-of-year examinations. The first is on the Epistemology unit and the Moral Philosophy unit. The second is on the Metaphysics of God unit and the Metaphysics of Mind unit. For each unit, there will be a set of compulsory questions requiring answers of different length: three short-answer questions, one medium-answer question and one long-answer question. Each paper is worth 50% of the A level.
Reading
To be confirmed at the start of the course
AQA A-level Philosophy Year 1 and AS:
Epistemology and Moral Philosophy
By Jeremy Hayward, Gerald Jones, Dan Cardinal
Published by Hodder Education, ISBN 978-1510400269
Meditations on First Philosophy
By R. Descartes
Published by CUP, ISBN 978-0521558181
AQA A-level Philosophy Year 2: Metaphysics
of God and Metaphysics of Mind
By Jeremy Hayward, Gerald Jones, Dan Cardinal
Published by Hodder Education, ISBN 978-1510400269
Philosophy: Themes and Thinkers
By J.W. Phelan
Published by CUP, ISBN 978-0521537421
Exam Board and Specification Codes
 A level: AQA 7172
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